


come nightfall you'll be waltzing through my door

by nereid



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Adultery, F/M, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1646351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun's shining brightly, even while he’s trying to avoid it – it's the beginning of the story, he’ll decide sometime later, because that's what Dan knows the sun does at the beginnings of stories – and he's sitting outside in a lovely, cozy café in a charming street on Montmartre and then like it’s any other day of his life, he sees Blair Waldorf crossing the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: adultery

Paris in summer is wonderful – at times. Paris in summer is also unbearably hot.

The best way of dealing with the heat, Dan Humphrey finds, is finding a café without much direct sunlight and a red haired waitress with kind eyes who also makes fantastic ice coffee.  
The sun's shining brightly, even while he’s trying to avoid it – it's the beginning of the story, he’ll decide sometime later, because that's what Dan knows the sun does at the beginnings of stories – and he's sitting outside in a lovely, cozy café in a charming street on Montmartre and then like it’s any other day of his life, he sees Blair Waldorf crossing the street and –

\-- _oh --_

\-- Toto it seems now like we're in Kansas again, or aren't in Kansas anymore, depending on the chosen of interpretation of Kansas and whether Kansas is someplace where Dan should be.  
Four things happen almost immediately: he decides he still thinks she's exquisitely beautiful, he wonders if she's noticed him, realizes he's not sure if he wants her to, and he spills the rest of his ice coffee.

The spilling of the coffee creates a seemingly unstoppable (and inevitably leading to his ultimate demise, he’ll add in his head later; perhaps sarcastically) chain of events. The waitress fusses over him and curses in a slightly louder voice than one would expect. He’s trying to find tissues while waiting for the waitress, who soon comes back and brings him a wet cloth so he can attempt to clean some of the coffee off his pants and the next thing he knows when he looks up is that for some reason or other (because the gods love him or because the gods hate him, he can’t tell) Blair is standing 20 feet away from him. She looks like she hasn't moved in a while. He’s not sure if she’s noticed him.

_Oh crap._

He allows himself a few moments to observe her, as impeccably dressed as always, in a dark blue and white dress, with a matching purse and stilettos. She still looks as if she dresses to kill, and he’s not sure if it’s a good thing now, or if it ever was at all.

And (as if there was ever another version of how this would end) then she turns around, back to where she came from, and then Dan's running towards her --

\-- (maybe he imagines this, but he thinks she's stopped walking away even before he's called out her name and approached her) -- 

\-- and she stops, and turns around. He think her hair's a bit shorter than it used to be, it barely reaches her shoulders now. He likes it.

“Blair Waldorf.”

“Dan Humphrey. And it’s Bass. It’s Bass now,” she replies. 

He knows, of course, that she’s a Bass, has been a Bass for quite some time now, but her maiden name is what makes it across his lips anyway, like an old habit that he can’t shake. In his mind, she’s just always been Blair Waldorf. That name used to mean something. Blair Waldorf is what he knows, or likes to think he knows. He’s not sure what he knows about Blair Bass. Or what anyone knows about Blair Bass, for that matter.

“Of course, how could I forget, so stupid of me.”

Before he gets the chance to speak again, though he isn't sure what he would say, her phone starts ringing and she takes it out of her purse. For some reason, she doesn't take the call and she just puts the phone back in her purse: he couldn't discern the caller ID from where he was standing, and he has to consciously stop himself from over-analyzing this. What if it was Chuck, what if it was Serena, what if what if whatifwhatifwhatif.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, as if "Blair Waldorf loves Paris" isn't one of the thousand little or grand things he still remembers about her, like this is strange somehow, that Blair Waldorf would be walking down the streets of Paris.

She smiles feebly, avoids meeting his eyes.

"One part business, two parts Paris."

He think she's probably avoiding using the word pleasure with him, which he can understand. Pleasure is Serena smiling and holding his hand, pleasure is Serena waking up with him and kissing him awake. Pleasure is also Blair in his loft, lifetimes ago, ordering food and taking her shoes off to make herself more comfortable on his couch, watching movies, pleasure is Blair knocking on his door, each time as unexpected as the one before, because he never allowed himself to learn that Blair Waldorf is a person that comes to Brooklyn to see Dan Humphrey.

If she was intentionally avoiding the word pleasure, he would understand.

"Do you want to have a cup of coffee with me?" he asks then, because he can't not. It's been years since they've done anything like this, but they used to be friends, even if it was lifetimes ago.

All he wants is for them to try to be friends, really – (he doesn't want her to smile because of him only and mock his apartment while sort of implying it would be better for him if she decorated it, if it was their apartment, doesn't want her to straddle him on his couch because the couch is closer to the door than the bed and she doesn't want to wait) – all he wants is to try to be friends. They used to be friends, why not now?

"No,“ she says. “I mean, I don't have time now."

She seems more quiet than usual, and he can't decide why that is, can't decide if it's awkward because she wants to talk to him or perhaps do more than talk or is it awkward because she doesn't want to do anything with him, and he’s here anyway, asking her to have coffee with him.

"We could have dinner together. Tonight. To catch up."

She seems to be thinking about it, bites her lip and she seems to be clutching her purse tighter than before. Her phone rings again. She doesn't take it out of her purse this time.

"We could. I'll text you the address. Try to wear something that doesn't embarrass me too much, Humphrey."

She says that, and he exhales and it's like he's been holding his breath without realizing it. He feels relief now, of a kind. This is good, this is a return to charted territory. Maybe if Blair can still mock his clothing, maybe everything turns out alright.

"Can't wait. I'll see you tonight then."

Her phone stops ringing (finally).

"Goodbye, Humphrey."

"Goodbye, Waldorf."

She frowns, for a millisecond and then promptly leaves.

He thinks it's a sort of protest, or fighting for his territory in this strange relationship of theirs, calling her Waldorf. It's completely intentional this time, not unconscious as it was a few moments ago. If she gets to call him Humphrey, like she did when they were friends (and occasionally when they fucked), well then he has the right to call her Waldorf just the same.

She walks away. He turns his back to her too, because he doesn't want to be the guy who stands on the street, waiting to see if the girl that walked away from him will turn back.  
He starts walking and he thinks of her. She looks older, yes, traces of lines around her eyes, but there's less of a spark in them, he decides as well. He's so distracted he almost forgets to return to pay for his coffee and to grab his things.

This will obviously not end well for him.

He walks to his place, tries to distract himself from Blair. Tries to plan what he could eat for lunch today, finds his headphones in his bag and listens to some music, looks at the green green trees and the blue blue sky and the old old buildings. But Blair used to mock his cooking, and there's the sound of Mick Jagger singing about a girl with far away eyes in his ears, and he's doing sightseeing in one of Blair Waldorf's favorite places in the world, so by the time he makes it back to his place, he's embraced the inevitability of Blair Waldorf, at least of her existence in his mind.

As Dan enters the building his apartment’s in and tries to find the keys in his bag, he’s still thinking about Blair Waldorf, and also of his life. He came to Paris to try to write, to get away from (Serena and) New York and the world where every few feet someone knows and has an opinion about his marriage, his life, his writing. He's rented an apartment here, lives alone in a somewhat small place, lives of whatever money he's earned writing so far, and he’s learning French and trying to sell articles and short stories. 

He’s been embracing the ancient, quaint feel of Paris, or at least he likes to think he’s been doing that. He even thought about buying a typewriter the first week he was here. He thought about placing it by the eastern window of his little apartment. He can see the scene play out clearly in his head, him pulling an all-nighter by the typewriter, an old but well preserved typewriter there on the desk, endless mugs of coffee surrounding it (and Blair waking up and coming to kiss his neck as she says “Good morning, Humphrey”). This scene played out in his mind at some point while he was first considering renting this apartment. He never did buy the typewriter, but he did end up renting the place. That probably says something about him, something he probably wouldn't like to know.

He'd written two more novels after his first, one about Serena in a way, the second still about Serena, but a different kind of her, and now he's writing something he's not sure what about. It's not that he's forgotten about Blair Waldorf (as if that was ever a possibility, Blair allowing the world to forget about her) but he makes an effort not to consciously allow her presence in his thoughts. She doesn't deserve that anymore, hasn't in years, and he only sees her rarely, so it's not much of a problem. They don't talk when he sees her anyway. It's not like he would know what to talk to her about.

However -- he does see Blair occasionally and he realizes it’s like whenever he sees Blair and talks to Blair and does anything with Blair - no matter how certain he is of the plot of his current novel or short story or something in between, suddenly through cracks in his seamless narrative, a fiercely independent brunette appears in the small town he’s writing about (he still hasn't thought of a name, but he knows the sound of the town and the smell of coffee that his male protagonist drinks every morning and during the day while working in his office). The brunette steals away the heart of the town along with the protagonist’s heart. It’s a cliché, definitely, undeniably. 

He hates that. He likes to think he hates clichés.

The truth is, Blair’s dictated the plot of his life at times, made him change, adapt. For better or for worse, right, that’s what they say? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Because he’s said those vows, but not to her, never to her. This life of his is not something that she has a rightful claim to. (Anymore.) Or she shouldn't. She definitely shouldn't.

He thinks sometimes that what bothers him most about her is that he doesn't know, he never gets to know it all. Maybe this isn't because of his grand, be-all-end-all love for her. Maybe he’s just curious. Because she gives him bits and pieces, never the entire story, it’s all like a puzzle he's trying to put together now from numerous newspaper headlines he can remember from over the years and halves of phone conversations with Serena and something resembling sadness that occasionally makes a brief appearance in her eyes. And he forms stories and assembles the puzzle that is Blair Waldorf, but he’s never really sure if he has all the pieces, or if the pieces are even her.

But he still remembers the stolen bits of memories that came through a crack in time and space, obviously, because they're not something that ever should have existed in this universe. Blair Waldorf belongs to the Upper East Side and to no one else, the same way that every queen belongs to her queendom.

But he remembers things anyway, grand things like the face she made just before they kissed the first time, and little things, like the tone of her voice when she criticized his choice of ties and jackets.

He remembers other things as well, countless things, and sometimes at night when he's rereading his different drafts of different stories, he's terrified to find her still in them. Not as the main character this time, no, those time have passed, she is not the lead female character of his life anymore, so naturally she got moved to the sidelines of his stories too, but it scares him how he wasn't aware that she still remained there, somewhere. In minor female characters everywhere, brunettes married to wrong men, with sad eyes and flawless taste, who look down on everyone and everything they consider unworthy. 

She stayed.

He wonders if – 

stops.

He opens the window then, breathes in deeply. He will not make a big deal out of this; he will not turn this into something it is not. Blair and him, they’re going out to dinner, and that’s that. It’s ridiculous to spend time eating alone when you could talk to someone while you eat. It’s pragmatic, it’s more fun. It’s nothing more than that.

His phone rings again, and there’s a second when he thinks it might be Blair (this is awful, this hasn't happened to him in years, hoping for Blair everywhere) but it’s Jenny, and things fall into place in his mind once again.

“I know why you've been calling more lately,” he informs her.

“I saw Blair today,” he continues, when she doesn't respond.

He should have realized this earlier, of course. The constant worrying and checking up on him for the last two weeks, either Jenny on the phone or Nate writing him three e-mails in the last two weeks (Jenny probably coerced him some way or another, Nate’s not that much of a worrying guy on his own). But Jenny worries, because Jenny is his sister, and Jenny works in Waldorf Designs and Jenny always knows when and where Blair travels. He should have known it was all about Blair being in Paris. (Doesn't it seem sometimes like all of it is?)

He hears her sigh, an ocean away.

“Just be careful, okay.“

“Jenny, there's nothing to worry about, “he says. He likes to think he's telling the truth --  
even though maybe he isn't.

Because he gets off the phone with Jenny and sits and stares through the window after that, doesn't even eat, though he drinks a lot of coffee. He turns on his laptop and writes pages upon pages of something, maybe his new novel, maybe something he will burn later, nothing particular about it. He writes Blair until he's not sure what to write anymore or if he'll ever be able to write anything else.

He's turned off the laptop, and as if a result of some sort of divine inspiration, his phone rings. The caller ID says Serena and the screen of his phone displays the picture of her that he took one lazy Sunday morning when she tried to make breakfast and burnt the pancakes. He ate them anyway and she laughed, „You must really love me if you would eat this,“ she said and he swallowed and smiled and said „I do“.

He doesn't know what he would say to someone today if they asked him if he loved his wife. It's worrying that he can't pin point the moment when it all went wrong, because there must have been something along the way, some sentence or a look or a lack of a smile. There must have been something, because Dan's a writer and Dan knows things don't just happen out of nowhere, and nothing ever changed between him and Serena.

Maybe that was it, though; maybe that's the whole point. No one likes a novel without a plot, and their marriage has been 3 years without any sign of a plot whatsoever.

He inhales and exhales and inhales once again and then he doesn't pick up and the phone simply stops ringing after a while. There, taken care of, just like that.

It's almost time to go then, so Dan showers and changes his clothes. He puts on his nicest blue jeans and a black shirt, realizes this is the most he's spent picking out clothing in a while. This should worry him, but it's the opposite, it feels like it's all clicking into place, whatever wasn't right before.

 

There.

 

It's as easy as breathing.


	2. part two

She texts him the restaurant address, as she promised. It’s some place he’s never been to and he hasn’t even heard of it, but judging by the address ( _judging by her_ ) it’ll be some place that’s elegant and not too fashionable: she wouldn’t want to advertise their dinner to the entire world, probably not even to the entire city of Paris, but she won’t give up all her comfort for it. That much he knows about her.

So Dan's stepped out of his apartment already and now he’s locking his apartment door and he starts walking towards his building exit (towards Blair, towards life, towards everything). He's twelve steps away from the building exit when he turns around and instead of carrying on, he hurries back up the stairs, unlocks the door, he thinks he's sweating and his heart’s racing and he’s rummaging through his bedroom closet and then his breathing returns to a normal rhythm when he changes into a white shirt and a dark blue dinner jacket, and decides this is it, this is the outfit he needs. He can go now.

 

Some days, Dan's 18 again, and he's sure that he's one correct choice of outfit away from getting all that he wants.

 

He decides to walk to the restaurant. It’s not that hot, and maybe he can find some shortcut, something quiet, to calm himself down a bit. Yes, a walk will do him good.

~*~*~*~

Dan walks into the restaurant and Blair is sitting at an empty table for two and he notices her immediately. She looks like a queen of sorts, cold and warm all at once, he knows. He wants to walk towards her, surprise her, catch her unaware, maybe then he’ll know everything about her and maybe he’ll finally understand everything. (Everything? _Her._ ) He tries, but as he’s about to move closer to tap her shoulder, which is ridiculous, because she’s not his locker room buddy that he exchanges funny stories with, he should not be tapping her shoulder _ever_ , but none of that matters now because before he can do it, she turns around and takes a look at him, gives him the once-over and probably makes a mental note of whatever she finds important or flawed, he doesn’t know really.

Dan, he just stares.

“Took you long enough, Humphrey” she says and there, just like that, they’re back.

It’s like not a day has passed.

 

 

He gives himself a moment to take her in again, all of her: she’s wearing a pair of tight black pants and he can’t remember if he’s ever even seen her in pants before tonight, but he’s also not sure if he’s seen her look as good as she looks now. Maybe it’s a Blair Waldorf thing, or a Waldorf thing, maybe as everyone else grows old she just sucks more life force out of everyone else or whatever, and that’s why as years go by, she just keeps looking better. She’s wearing some kind of blouse or other, with frills and probably something else Dan’s never bothered to know the name of, but he knows he likes seeing it on her, and that’s always been enough for him.

He thinks she looks exquisite, he always has.

So Dan sits down next to Blair, and she calls the waiter then and the waiter asks for their orders. Blair orders something for both of them, he wouldn’t know what for sure, his French is far from perfect. And it would’ve helped his hearing probably if he chose to concentrate on her words more than the movement of her lips. French looks good on them, he decides.

The waiter in the restaurant offers them complementary Scotch, “You’re Americans, _oui_?” and that part Dan catches, and he notices that Blair's hand that's holding her glass of wine shivers for a second, and he hurries to assure the waiter they only want wine. She doesn't have to say anything, _Chuck drinks Scotch_ is a thought that spends the rest of the evening lurking somewhere between her eyes and her lips, and he's known her long enough to know these things even when she doesn't want to say them.

 

Dan's a writer, a writer first and a writer always and he blames that for the embarrassingly little amount of time and detail it takes for him to form a narrative from the way Blair's glass never quite becomes empty during their dinner. He sees parties when he closes his eyes, luxurious chandeliers and men in suits, holding expensive Scotch. He sees women in dresses that she knows are not as spectacular as hers, and a man on her arm who keeps trying to look at her, but his view keeps finding its way to somewhere that's her but also not really, because he never was good at pinpointing all her edges and the exact locations and angles of all her twists and turns. He sees her sad eyes along with smiling lips that take another sip of something expensive and alcoholic, lips that would seem to be mouthing help to anyone observing closely.

What happens during dinner is a bit of a blur, if he’s being completely honest.

“So, how’s your writing been, Humphrey?” she says, and Dan understands why she does it. His guess is: she doesn’t like silence much these days.

He can tell she also doesn’t like anyone but herself asking questions these days, because all she does during dinner is ask about his work and his writing and about Paris and his apartment and about museums and paintings and books (and never about his marriage and never about Serena) and he guesses she doesn’t want to answer any of the million questions he’s sure can be read clearly on his face.

But he doesn’t force it, he doesn’t push her.

 

He just keeps pouring wine, which is his first mistake, keeps looking at her, which is another mistake, and in a few moments, after they’ve finished eating, he will invite her over to his place, which will be his third mistake.

 

After Dan’s just paid the bill, Blair stands up, ready to go, and he hurries to his feet to help her put on her white blazer. She smiles feebly in response and his hand brushes the skin of her neck accidentally while he’s helping her. He takes a deep breath, steadies himself, says “After you” to Blair with a smile on his face and he follows her outside, walks a proper distance behind her like a good boy, not like someone thinking of anything but being a gentleman. (He does check out her ass, though.)

She stops outside on the street, leans against a solitary street lamp and looks at him as if she’s trying to defy him or defy something, only he has no idea what it is she’s at war with.

 

“Do you want to come over? I could make coffee? You, uhm, you do look like you could use some.”

 

Inviting her to his place, it's a leftover reflex from lifetimes ago, a reflex that he didn't even know he had developed until know. He's not supposed to be doing this now, his apartment's a mess, and even if it wasn't, it wouldn't be the kind of space she would appreciate, and she's married and he's married and he shouldn't be thinking about calling her over to his place, whatever happens or doesn't happens there.

He shouldn't.

(It doesn’t matter. He does it anyway. He always would have done it anyway.)

 

(There’s moral, a disguised message hidden here somewhere, something potentially useful and insightful, about him or her or both. But maybe if he thinks about it for too long, maybe then he doesn’t invite her over, and more than any insight or grand revelation, he would like to take off her pants and blouse and bra and panties and kiss every inch of her body until there’s not a trace of anyone else on her and until whatever else may be going on elsewhere in the world becomes as irrelevant as it truly is in comparison with touching Blair Waldorf’s skin.)

 

They’re standing in front of the restaurant in silence now. She scrunches up her nose and a smile appears on her face for a split second before giving place to a frown. She purses her lips and looks down. He thinks he can see her lips tremble, despite it being somewhat dark outside. She bites her lip then, doesn’t look at him, but she nods and starts walking towards a cab and he follows her.

He opens the door for her and they both take a seat in the back of the cab. The driver doesn’t make an attempt at small talk, which Dan is grateful for, because Dan only sees Blair, sees her fidget with her purse and bite her lip again. He would usually feel bad about this, but somehow while they’re driving towards his place and she’s biting her lip and all he wants to do is be the one biting her lip instead of her, well that doesn’t leave much space for regret, does it?

Blair says nothing by the time Dan’s paid the driver and they’ve left the cab. Dan leads the way to his apartment upstairs and Blair follows. They walk up the stairs and they’re in front of his door when Dan thinks for the first time:

 _Oh. This is actually happening._ (Whatever this may be.)

He fusses with his keys for a moment or so. He can (or likes to think) he can hear her breathing a few feet behind him. Likes to think she hasn't run away, but he's too scared to actually look. There’s a downright terrifying storm of ideas going on in his mind right now, thoughts racing and blending into one another and he’s pretty sure if he looked at his hands right now he would see them shaking, so he avoids doing that. He feels like either she manipulated him into coming to his place or he manipulated her or some greater power took control of the universe for a few seconds, because Dan’s dreamed about this, well, years ago, but he has, and the dreams he’s had years ago, it makes no sense for them to be interfering with his reality now.

But as nervous as he feels, he still unlocks the door somehow. Everything’s a mess here, there’s leftover food on the counters in the kitchen, visible through the open door leading into it. His bed’s not made and his papers are everywhere, and all the papers seem to be screaming Blair Waldorf at him and he thinks he’s going to drown or choke any moment now. Blair’s made her way through the open apartment door, around Dan, and now she’s standing in front of him, still so beautiful. He notices her perfume for the first time this evening, it's like a brand new scent or like he has a brand new sense of smell. It's exciting, that's what all of this is.

He's closed the apartment door and now he’s looking at her looking at his things, and he tries to speak, well, he does speak.

He says “Blair” like it's a prayer or a curse, he’s not sure, but it doesn’t matter, does it, when Blair’s already turned around and she’s started walking towards him, he feels like he can’t move, or doesn’t want to, or those two have merged and have somehow become the same, but then in three beats of his heart Blair steps on his toes and in half a beat more she kisses him, lips on lips, tongue to tongue, her teeth on his lower lip, his hands low on her back, her hands in his hair, neck, shoulders and hair again. There’s a note of panic to her movement, a frantic quality to it all, but she’s kissing his neck and trying to unbutton his shirt or maybe tear it apart and, well, fuck it.

 _Fuck it_ , he says, it’s directed more at her still having her blouse on than anything else, and Blair takes the hint, looks him in the eyes, takes a deep breath and takes a step back away from him and takes off her pants and doesn’t break eye contact. He's glad she doesn't, he doesn't want her to look away, not now. He feels like he’s immobilized again, wants only to touch her and he’s afraid he shouldn’t. She only breaks eye contact when it’s necessary, when she’s taking off her blouse over her head and then for a few moments after it’s been taken off she holds her blouse in one hand, lowers it slowly and lets the blouse slip  
slip   
slip   
away onto the floor.

 

She turns her back to him then and she's wearing black lingerie and he always loved it when she wore black lingerie and her naked legs still look as fantastic as they always have when she’s walking away from him. She walks to his room and he follows.

 

 

(He shouldn’t.)

 

 

(It doesn’t matter. He does it anyway. He was always going to do it anyway.)


	3. part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the most self-indulgent sex scenes i've ever written. enjoy.

Her fingertips pull away from his and she sashays into his bedroom, a perfect picture of confidence and determination; the way she doesn't look back to check if he is following, her hips ocean waves even out of water. In his mind, she's never needed water. He does this as easily as ever, following her lead. He bends down, abandons his shoes and socks in the living room and he follows. The wooden floor is warm below his toes and he would like to be able to call it cold - it would have seemed more fitting, Sir Humphrey of Brooklyn walking through ice and cold to get to the Princess and save her. His life is still not a fairytale, though, so he gets warm toes, he gets creaky wooden floors instead of magnificent fairytale landscapes. He gets to need to be saved instead. As he crosses over the threshold of his room, she stops and turns around to face him, her hands on her hips and then crossed over her chest and then wrapped around her shoulders. Titanic was sunk by less than Blair Waldorf.

"You alright?" he asks, voice softer than he intended it to be. He worries and he's not sure he should. She untangles her arms from herself and nods, "Shut up and kiss me Humphrey." and he's nineteen again, nineteen and in love with Blair Waldorf and this, this is everything. 

The floor is still warm beneath his fingers.

He wonders briefly what she'll taste like, he didn't concentrate on her taste the last time, his senses and basic brain function mostly brought down on their knees by her, but he'll make it count this time, make note of the hypnotizing silkiness of the skin of her back where his fingers linger carefully, ready to escape at the first sight of Blair changing her mind, Blair waking up and smelling reality and seeing this for what it is - _fraud, deceit, trickery_ , he can list the words and their synonyms in his head, it comes with ease after this much practice at playing at being a writer.

It's only a few seconds later, when she abandons his lips and kisses his chest that he realizes he is talking out loud, _liaison, fling, affair_.

She plays her part well, still, she pauses for an infinitesimal moment and he lowers his lips to her neck and she pushes him onto the bed.

"You taste - " he starts, his voice breathy. Her hands are on the zipper of his pants, pulling down,

"Yes, Humphrey?" she prompts.

"Refined," he manages.

"Refined? For a man of as many novels as you," her voice lilts, teases. He removes her hand from his zipper than, leaves his pants half unzipped and half pulls half pushes her onto the dark blue sheets with a new found determination. He motions for her to lie down and she does, so he takes a second to take in the sight of her, legs, cheeks, smile, eye roll, all she's ever been. He doesn't take off her panties, not yet, but lowers his lips down to her and _hallowed_ , his voice is husky, now, his fingers are tracing the outline of her panties and he's sure he can hear both of their heartbeats clearly and Blair's shallow breathing. He hooks his finger to the edges of her panties and pulls them towards him, off her legs and feet and gently lowers them besides them.

"Solemn", he goes on, and his tongue reaches out and touches her then, silk and steel, his tongue slow and delicate. Blair whimpers and Dan smiles.

"Ecclesiastical", he goes on, changes pace, presses harder, and Blair is louder.

"Transcendent", he finishes.

"Fuck", Blair exhales, and he's trailing his tongue up her stomach, over her ribs, under her breasts.

"I'm on the pill", she says. She doesn't look him in the eyes, but he takes off his pants anyway and she pulls him into her.

"Merciless", he mouths to the skin below her ear.

"Euphistic", his tongue in her mouth, his whispering goes on.

"Magniloquent", she turns them over, and she's on top of them now. (She's always been on top of them.)

"Prurient", he smiles. She's dictating the tempo now, and he's closer to home with every thrust.

"Por - tentous", his voice fails him, just a little, and it's her turn to smile now.

"Iniquitous". His hands are on her hips now, helping her, his hips finding hers, and she places her hands in his and he lets out 

"Arcane", and her fingers dig into his hands and she moans and he comes. (He's always been as easy as that.)

The first drops of Paris evening rain start dropping on the open windows, a fitting soundtrack perhaps, raw and unassuming. Neither of them bothers to get up and close them. Dan is sweaty and so is she, though he likes the look better on her than on himself, the sweat making her skin glisten.

She's lying on her back, arms above her head, breathing getting deeper, which is good, he's always liked his ability to make her relax, ease into whatever life throws at them. He leans over her and kisses her cheek then, and rolls himself off the bed. He has some mid-quality French wine in his fridge and he gets out two glasses out of his kitchen cupboard. When he comes back into his room, she's put on his black bathrobe.

He'd like to say he doesn't think of Serena at that moment, that everything is so pure and true that he doesn't have the heart or the mind to bring into this moment Serena making him try on the bathrobe in the store and insisting on buying it even when he kept rolling his eyes, doesn't bring back the light touching of her skin against his later that night, when she made him put on the bathrobe and make them pancakes at two in the morning and danced with him in their kitchen to -- he doesn't remember what exactly, but something upbeat, something catchy -- something _Serena_.

"Serena bought that - " he stops himself from something, he's not sure how that sentence made it out of his mind to his lips, and he doesn't like that. He looks away from Blair, he should not be saying this to her. He's not sure why exactly he stops himself, though he could think of plenty enough reasons to do it.

Blair leans on the windowsill and he would have written her to roll her eyes then even if she hadn't done it herself.

"I'm not a child, Humphrey. Or an idiot. I didn't forget you're married to her. Or that I'm married."

"I know, it's just -- maybe I did."

Blair doesn't react further, not in any way he picks up on anyway, and he likes to think he would have picked something up if it had been there. But still, when her gaze falls on the glasses in his left and then on the wine in his right hand, he takes a breath to stop and look at her mostly unobserved: there's street light behind her back, she is a silhouette now more than anything else, a immaculate homage to every femme fatale that ever was. Hints of skin lit and visible, a waist so slim underneath the tied knot of the belt of his bathrobe, her body seemingly so small and fragile, he is not sure he would believe her able of any significant movement at all if he had done felt it on himself.

All the scene's missing is a strong red glow of a cigarette, but he's almost sure not even he's ready to be that much of a cliche.

She's sitting on the windowsill, legs crossed, a bare foot left dangling in the air, and it's only when he focuses on setting the glasses and the bottle on his nightstand and opens the drawer to search for a wine opener does she say

"I hate him," with a voice so small his throat clenches and he can't breathe.

He stops moving.

"Did he - ?"

"Still such a pedestrian, Humphrey. No, he doesn't hit me. Really, it's as if a man needs to hit a woman to make her hate him. I think he might even love me."

Dan's fingers move and feel the wine opener.

"Maybe not all of us, I mean, maybe I wasn't supposed to actually, you know, marry my soulmates. Maybe not all souls can handle that."

He gently places the wine opener on the bottle. He's careful not to say it. He opens the bottle.

"Did you? Marry yours?"

He pours wine into the first glass. A drop misses the glass. Tires screech outside. A woman curses.

"I don't know."

He brings her a glass, and she takes it, and moves to her right, making room for him to sit down next to her.

He brings the glass near his lips, but she still hasn't moved hers. He's about to ask something, and he lowers his glass, just as she raises hers and empties all of it in seconds. (Blair Waldorf's always been thirsty. Mostly, her problem was just that she didn't know what she was thirsty for.)

"I couldn't think of anything I'd like to toast to," she says as an explanation.

He kisses her shoulder because it's safer than saying it.

He guesses he did it too gently, too nicely, or some other thing Blair's occasionally not known how to handle, because she leans over to set their glasses on the floor and then she unties the bathrobe and straddles him. She bites his ear, hard, and pushes her hips into his. She takes both his hands and places them on the upper window frame and he holds steady, he's not sure he entirely trust her not to make him fall. But he lets her go on anyway, nods in response when she stops to look at him, and then she touches him again, takes his cock into her hand and pushes it inside herself and holds herself up by putting one arm around his neck for balance. Her fingers dig into the skin of his neck, and she is going to leave bruises, he's sure. 

"No, not enough - " she says then, and takes his hands off the window and points to the floor.

"Down," she says.

He lies down without saying anything.

She's so beautiful and determined when she sits down on his face, he feels himself harden. She's soft, and a bit sharp, and a step away from breaking him. Body, soul, whatever. This is Blair.

He tries holding her hips up, for better balance, but she pushes his hands away and he lets them fall to his sides.

So he flattens his tongue, and he makes circular motions. He stabs her and penetrates her. He breathes, he kisses, he makes pauses, he builds a rhythm, he worships.

She doesn't look at him when she comes. It's alright, maybe - he's not really sure she wants her to see him anyway, not like this, not when his all his wounds are bleeding again and he doesn't know how to bandage hers.

"My life sucks," he says when she's rolled off of him and onto the floor, the bathrobe spread around her, her nipples in line with his eyes. 

There's not much poetry to this. He'd like there to be poetry.

She laughs then, her whole body shaking, her palm on her forehead, scooping hair away from it.

"You're an Upper East Sider, Dan. Of course it does."

She gets up, unceremonious, and it worries him he can't see any noticeable change on her now that she's up and walking again, especially when he's not sure if his legs would allow him to get up now, even if he wanted to. Isn't there supposed to be something, he's wondering. Something of significance, something painting on her body a trace of this night, of him. Something at least a bit permanent. She doesn't provide any explanation before walking out of the room, but when she comes back, she's carrying something in her hands.

"Jenny said I couldn't go to Paris without these," Blair says and holds up a pack of Gauloises cigarettes and a lighter.

Dan laughs, heartily. He can't remember the last time he's laughed like this.

"What?" Blair asks, but he waves his hand and says, "Nothing."

"Everything's perfectly alright."

Blair puts two cigarettes between her lips and lights one, and then the other. He thinks she's seen two many movies, and this is an old move, but he won't tell her that. She hands one cigarette to him and inhales hers.

They sit on the floor, backs against his bed, eyes set on the awakening Parisian streets, Blair's hand on his thigh.

The floor is still warm.


End file.
